Drum-Related Blathering and Minutiae
Patrick
Yep. It's me. I'm responsible for anything and everything you don't like about this site.
Homepage: http://www.drummersdominion.com
Posts by Patrick
A Drummer’s Dream
Jun 21st
Can’t wait to see this. Not only is it a great collection of players, but the production quality looks amazing.
Featuring:
Nasyr Abdul Al-Khabyyr
Dennis Chambers
Kenwood Dennard
Horacio Hernandez
Giovanni Hidalgo
Mike Mangini
Raul Rekow
Frank Hensler: In Memoriam
Jun 20th
On January 6, 2010, my first drum instructor, Frank Hensler, passed away at 74. As events like this inevitably do, it caused me to reflect on life in general and my musical path to this point. I’ve learned a lot of things from a lot of drummers over the last nearly 20 years of playing, but what I learned from Frank is at the core of who I am as a drummer.
He played such a formative role in fostering my love of drumming and jazz. Back when I was amassing my collection of Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa recordings, it would always amaze me when I would bring a new one to him and he’d know every tune. We’d sit and dissect the parts, and he’d show me how to play things that sounded impossible at the time.
Coincidentally, New Year’s weekend I had pulled out Gary Chester’s New Breed, my very first instructional book for drum set. It’s all marked up with notes from Frank. What a credit to him that all these years later I can return to those old lessons and still learn new things.
Review » Nevermore: The Obsidian Conspiracy
Jun 16th
Band: Nevermore
Drums: Van Williams
Album: The Obsidian Conspiracy
Label: Century Media
Release Date: 8-Jun-2010
DD Rating: 
The long-awaited, delayed new album from Nevermore has dropped, and I have to say that I’m of two minds about most of it. The song writing and performances are rock-solid, the production is top-notch, but it’s nothing new for the band. If you slap a sticker on your new album that says something to the effect of “Five years in the making”, it had better sound like you’ve been toiling away on it for the last half decade. “The Blue Marble and the New Soul”, with its haunting melody and creepy piano lines, is really the only tune that veers from the band’s staple technical ferocity and big choruses. The Obsidian Conspiracy seems a little closer in spirit to the short-and-vicious Enemies of Reality than to the more unique and (dare I say) “catchy” tracks of Dead Heart in a Dead World and This Godless Endeavor. I guess I just wanted more in-the-car-scream-along tunes on this album.
“And the Maiden Spoke” is the standout track of the album. Really cool, slow 6/8 bluesy intro, then—WHAM! One of the most killer syncopated riffs the band has done. It’s a fast 4:3-type rhythm that Van Williams simply slays. (I’ll be transcribing this soon for a later post…) Jeff Loomis’ guitar solo is the perfect blend of melody and shredding.
Other tracks of note are “The Termination Proclamation”, “Your Poison Throne”, “Without Morals”, and the title track.
I was excited to read several months ago that Nevermore would be covering The Tea Party’s “Temptation”. Well, excited and nervous. Even the most talented artists with the best of intentions have a hit-or-miss track record with cover tunes. It was my hope that Nevermore would create a nearly unrecognizable re-imagining of the song, like they did with Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sounds of Silence” on Dead Heart in a Dead World. Instead, it’s a practically note-for-note replay. Because it’s identical, you can’t help but compare the two side by side. Guitar, bass, and drums sound great; the electronics are a little anemic; but it’s the vocals that keep this from being an effective cover. Warrel Dane’s voice is as distinctive as they come, but he’s no Jeff Martin. The vocals on the original, by comparison, have much more… oomph. Through the preceding 10 tracks of the album, Warrel has proven that he can belt through an incredible range, but he’s far too restrained here. So, it ends up being a band I like covering a tune of a band I love. That I had to pay an extra $2 for…
Summary: The Obsidian Conspiracy is not Nevermore’s most trailblazing album, but it’s good; it’s worth the purchase. Van Williams and Jeff Loomis are as inspiring as ever.
Robert Mitchell 3io: “Teardrop”
Jun 14th
This is a pretty awesome rendition of Massive Attack’s “Teardrop”.
Keeping It Simple
Jun 7th
Typically, stick tricks make me roll my eyes. Not because I think they’re lame—quite the contrary, I love a good show as much as the next drum geek. No, what makes me groan is that more often than not the flashy drummer in question has obviously spent time perfecting these tricks to the detriment of drumming. The time will fall apart or the sound will be inconsistent. To me, tricks are done well when you can close your eyes and not hear the visual.
I think this video fits the bill. Yes, it’s hilarious because it’s completely out of place, but the drummer’s sound and time remain quite consistent while doing some of the craziest tricks I’ve ever seen:
And, just because, here’s some from Virgil:
Arto’s Bottle
Jun 3rd
I have a great love for “found objects”, or homemade/improvised musical oddities. These videos of Turkish-Armenian artist Arto Tuncboyaciyan rocking a glass bottle and a tambourine are just wickedly fun. There are several versions of this YouTube, but here are a couple I like best:
Travis Orbin: One of My New Faves
May 3rd
I’m very excited when I get my YouTube subscription update and there’s a new Travis Orbin video link inside. In a sea of Internet “superstar” poseurs, this guy’s the real deal. It doesn’t hurt that the production of his videos is excellent either!
His influences are clear, and comparisons to Mike Mangini are inevitable, but he nonetheless has a very unique style. I’m particularly impressed with his dynamics, ambidexterity, and super-clean feet-and-hands runs around that cool Mangini-meets-Bruford set-up. There’s a lot of really inspiring stuff here that makes me wish I could lock myself in a practice room for a week straight!
Here’s a video of a session Travis did with Pete Peterson. It’s a really neat, complex tune in the vein of Zappa / Mike Keneally / Mike Patton (the Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, and solo stuff). I’d love to see a chart for this thing. It’s rife with meter changes, polyrhythms, and metric modulations—and that’s just the rhythmic stuff!
More Travis vids here.
Mike Mangini Clinic 04.09.10
Apr 12th
I haven’t seen Mike Mangini since I graduated Berklee in 2005, so I was very excited to see what he’s developed in the last five years. I was sure he, unlike me, had added a truckload of new tricks and concepts to his arsenal.
A big reason why Mike is often derided by YouTube baboons for not being “musical” is that his abilities are impressive on both a very technical and cerebral level. What often sounds like drums falling down stairs is actually something that is conceptually nothing short of astounding. So, I thought it was unfortunate that Mike had to issue a disclaimer before sitting down at the kit, stating that not everything he would be playing would be “musical”, comparing clinic drumming to a slam dunk contest, etc. The internet nonsense had already begun back when I was studying with him, but it was evident in Mike’s demeanor that it’s a worsening distraction that gnaws at him at least enough to now warrant a verbal disclaimer before taking the stage.
I’m of the opinion that if people can’t understand or appreciate what he’s doing, then, well… so what? The disclaimer should be “I’m about to blow your freaking mind. If you can’t understand what’s going on up here, I will explain. If you’re just going to right nanny-nanny-boo-boo things about me in 3rd-grade English on the Internet anyway, eat a turd and leave—in either order.” But then again, I’m not an internationally-known drum superstar with endorsements and fans that are legion…
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